Opinions on the Tannoy GRF-R?

Original GRF cabs of any shape are crazy rare. A very different sound to the more common Yorks or Lancasters, really punchy, a visceral upper bass thwack. Nice cabs if they work in your room. I can’t comment on value as it is just so long since I’ve seen another pair for sale. An incredibly rare pare of speakers as really the GRF cab was a Red-era cab. I’m not sure I’ve ever even seen a factory Gold pair before!

I suspect if you moved to larger cabs you’d change that view. I love my Tannoys on really complex electronica etc. The bass is really fast without being the hopelessly unnatural bleached dry and lean stuff that comes out of some hi-fi. They are amazing on techno 12” singles etc. Mine are in Lockwood Universal cabs, which are larger than Yorks and aperiodic-vented rather than ported, so kind of their own thing. I have a bit of bass-lift from the back wall which can make them a bit much on really bottom-heavy rap stuff, but leaning forward a foot or so fixes that. Big drivers are just way better on bass to my ears, they barely need to move where a smaller driver is violently bobbing in and out adding all manner of distortion.

 

I think it is context rather than myth, e.g. you use very high power solid state amps so I’d expect you to favour the Tannoys that you do. Swap out for a ten Watt Leak or 15W Quad II and get a different result. If you want to use an 8 Watt SET then Silvers make much more sense. Tannoy models definitely reflected the technology of their day. The company reacted to shifting trends.

 

Fair enough. Quad of any era just seems to work, I liked the 306 here, but I really didn’t enjoy my otherwise lovely Pass Aleph 3, or for that matter ‘chrome bumper’ Naim kit with my Monitor Golds. Just too small, lean and over-damped compared with the 303, vintage Leaks, Prima Luna or Radford I’ve had in over the years. I really liked the Aleph 3 elsewhere in the house in other systems, it was a stunning amp (it’s with a new owner now), but the humble 303 slaughtered it into the Lockwoods! I’m sure it is just a damping thing. It just sounded small and gutless whereas it could produce a huge open soundstage with the JR149s. Synergy is everything IMO.

I agree with you completely regarding crossovers. I went down that rabbit hole, spent a fair bit of money, and actually fell out with one of the expensive boutique sellers as I hated the results of their “expertise” and asked for a refund (I won’t name them here)! My crossovers are entirely stock and staying that way, the crossover cases have never even been opened. I guess the electrolytic on the bass roll-off may be a little off by now, but the rest are likely film. They seem to be in most Golds. They certainly sound better than any alternatives I’ve tried and sound the same left to right. I did spend a lot of time cleaning the level and roll-off switches.

I did also try bypassing the switches on a previous pair and did so one level setting below ‘level’ which equates to roughly ‘level’ with switches in. I didn’t feel it was a disaster, but neither did it bring anything. It was a step in my learning curve towards leaving them entirely stock. To be honest this has been my main takeaway from actively fiddling around with vintage kit for the past 20 years or so. The tldr of all my threads is restore to as close to factory as possible and ignore internet “experts” expensive boutique sellers etc. I wasted so much money on the TD-124 restoration getting sucked down various boutique rabbit holes. No regrets as it is a learning curve and my (mis)adventures generate good traffic so do help pay for things. There really is a lot of questionable advice, groupthink and profiteering out there IMHO.